“Collaborative Potato Breeding for Yield Stability and Micronutrient Density” was a project funded by the Austrian Development Agency, and the International Potato Centre. The project addressed food security, human nutrition, and sustainable agriculture issues, including micronutrient deficiencies and the need for yield stability of highland potato cropping systems in central and western Nepal and central and eastern Bhutan. The project carried out these issues through breeding for high micronutrient content and yield stability, decentralised participatory selection of new varieties, and increasingly intelligent targeting of breeding objectives based on accurate human nutrition baseline knowledge.  

The project was prioritised by researchers and development agents in the Hindu-Kush Himalaya region as part of a much-needed food-based approach to combat malnutrition in isolated regions at high altitudes. It addressed the need to improve the nutrition of potato-consuming rural populations in Nepal and Bhutan through the development of new potato varieties with enhanced nutritional quality, local adaptability to mountain production systems, disease resistance, and acceptability to consumers and actors in target value chains. Moreover, it contributed to closing the gap between the recommended daily allowance (RDA) and current (deficient) levels of micronutrient intake in rural areas of both countries, where malnutrition, potato cultivation, and consumption overlap. It was able to do so through a food-based approach that prioritised collaborative breeding for high micronutrient content and yield stability, decentralised participatory selection of new varieties, and increasingly intelligent targeting of breeding objectives based on accurate human nutrition baseline knowledge.